“I am most certain he will,” St. Tarval replied.
“So, what is next, now we’re officially gone respectable? The roof repairs, of course. And, what, pay off Sir Henry?”
“I thought I might write to him in London, and propose sending him half, and in trade for the remainder, I would dig the canal we’ve talked of for ages to drain off Wardle Marsh. Bring it down past Home Farm, to the benefit of us both.”
“And if he agrees? What of what’s left, for it ought not to cost that much, if we put the men to it after harvest, before the frost sets in hard.”
“Which is my plan. I’ve set aside a sum that I believe will meet the case. You and I may split what is left.”
“Then I shall buy that hunter off Maitland, before John Cozen gets it. And you?”
“First, a tailor,” the marquess said, and to his brother’s round-eyed face, he added, “and with what’s left, a visit to town to see how Kit is doing.”
“By Jove,” Ned exclaimed. “I’d almost think you planned it all along.”
EIGHTEEN
“I do not want to go to another soiree,” Amelia said, pouting. “Not if it is all talk, and worse, poetry.”
“The least attractive quality in a girl is to be choosing among her invitations as if she were a fine lady,” Mrs. Latchmore began in a scolding voice.
Lady Chadwick said calmly, “Lady Badgerwood would like to see you there, Amelia. Hetty told me that her mother-in-law invited Charles DuLac in especial to meet you, at the encouragement of his cousins. He is recently come down from Oxford, before he goes to York to take up his living.”
“The girls have mentioned their Cousin Charles.” Amelia wrinkled her nose. “He’s the clergyman, isn’t he? I remember him, I think. He was come down from Eton for the holidays, and he was horrid to us. He called us simpletons and lackwits for not knowing Latin.”
Mrs. Latchmore made a scandalized noise. “I take leave to remind you that the DuLacs are as wealthy as the Athertons, if not very likely more.”
Lady Chadwick added calmly, “In any case, you are not going across the street to get married, only to listen to a few poems, and meet this fellow now you are all grown up.”
“But I don’t like Charlie DuLac,” Amelia muttered, when her aunt was out of the room. “He has a head like a hayrick on fire, as well as a horrid tongue. This soiree is probably his idea. I trust they do not expect me to know a poem.” She turned to Kitty. “You have better things to do than read horrid poetry, do you not, Lady Kitty?”
Kitty gave Amelia a sympathetic smile, but shook her head. “I must confess I like poetry very much, but you must remember I live in the country, and there is not much to do besides read.” She opened her hands in a plea. “Besides, the poetry I like is funny, or full of love. The horrid stuff we had to copy out as children is not what I think of as poetry, even if it did scan and rhyme.”
“Love?” Amelia stated, askance.
“Oh, some of the poems from before our grandmothers’ day was scandalous. They had a different taste then, and they were not so nice. If you look in some of the older books in any library, you might be surprised,” Kitty said.
Amelia did not want to scoff, or retort that she would never look into any book, especially an old one—not to Lady Kitty, who was so pretty, and always friendly, ready to accompany one on a walk even when one’s own sisters were being selfish. So she abandoned the subject as Kitty went on to sift through the invitations at her plate.
“Look, two balls... and a masquerade! I have always wanted to go to a masquerade.”
“A masquerade ball?” Amelia started up.
“You are invited, too,” Clarissa said, smiling. “My grandmother is holding it. Your name is included in the family’s invitation.”
When Amelia’s transports had subsided, and she and Eliza began considering wild ideas for costumes, Kitty reached the last of her letters, then sighed. “Nothing from my brother. I am almost certain it’s been a week.”
Ten days, Clarissa thought.
“... but there might be a problem with the post, or he might have too much to do than be forever writing letters. I will not repine. Do you go to return books, Clarissa, or are you busy?”
As the ladies got up from the breakfast table, Amelia gradually lost interest in the masquerade, which seemed impossibly far into the future. First she must get through another horrid soiree.
Her mood stayed sour through a long, rainy day. She did not want to go out just to get splashed, but no one of the least interest thought to call. Horrid people, selfish every one! She remained sufficiently disgruntled when evening arrived without an excuse to throw over the soiree. She put on her most hated gown, rather than waste a favorite, and scowled at the paving as the family walked across the street.
Melissa Atherton was there to do hostess duty for her mother, who could not rise from the Bath chair that she had been confined to ever since the carriage accident that had occasioned the present Lord Badgerwood’s inheriting while still at Eton.
The arrival of the Chadwick party coincided with the delivery of another large party, causing a crowd to be ascending the stairs to the parlor. Into the confusion Mrs. Latchmore must insert herself, offering to move chairs about, to shift candles or push Lady Badgerwood to a better spot— in short, to get in everyone’s way, while exclaiming that she lived to help.
Amelia, pressed against a wall by her aunt’s unnecessary bustle, found herself next to a tall, striking young man. He had a high brow from which waving auburn hair swept back above a pair of gray eyes that were vaguely familiar.
His gaze met hers. The corners of his mouth deepened as she muttered, “Never was there anyone who could make such a piece of work out of a trifle. And all to be thanked.”
“She wants to be of value. Is that not a human trait?” the fellow responded.
“I wish she were of value, instead of pestering us about it,” Amelia grumbled, and when he did not agree, she said in haste, “Oh, I know she cares about us in her own way. My eldest sister always reminds us of that. But she goes about it all wrong.”
“She never had children of her own, I collect?”
“No,” Amelia acknowledged, then came a new thought, as people began to move at last. “So what you are saying is, she never was put in the way of it?”
“I would scarcely go that far.” He laughed ruefully as he stretched out a hand, and invited her to take a chair. When she did, she was glad when he took the one next to hers. “There are many with a quiverful of children who ought not have been parents at all, strictly speaking. But we were speaking of your aunt. I don’t suppose you heard Dr. Ross’s homily on that head in church Sunday-last?” He peered into her face and said with amusement, “Of course you didn’t. Half the congregation was asleep, and the other half looking at their watches, or one another’s new hats. I found myself nodding, though his topic was compassion, a quality perhaps scarcer than we could wish.”
“If only Dr. Ross were not so boring,” Amelia said, astonished that so handsome a fellow would ever bring up church.
“It is the style,” he admitted. “But I am afraid that our attempts to employ an elevated style sail above the heads of the congregation, for our human feet are firmly set on the ground. I am learning that a little levity—nothing inappropriate—catches the attention better than well-rehearsed and complicated periods.”
Amelia studied him in amazement as a new idea occurred. This was Charlie DuLac! He was not the horrid redhead she remembered, skinny as a broom, his clothes always dusty. He was dressed like a man of fashion, and his eyelashes were the longest she had ever seen.
And he had recognized her.
She fought the tide of heat flooding her face, and ventured a remark. “I forgot you are a clergyman.” Now he flushed, and looked away, and she said in haste, “I hope I did not misspeak. I meant it as a compliment.”
“I know. And I thank you for it, Amelia—no, it’s rightly Miss Harlowe, now. I think
...” He hesitated.
“What is it?” she asked, aware of Lucasta Bouldeston on the other side of the room. But for once Lucasta was not poking into others’ conversations.
“Will I be a bore if I say anything more about clergymen?” Charlie—no, Mr. DuLac—asked.
She knew she had been rude, though not by intent. She said very quickly, “Please enlighten me,” and couldn’t help but think that Aunt Sophia would not fault her for that platitude.
“Very well, then, thank you. We are taught to be above mere human concerns, but I wonder if that merely leads to others forgetting that within the bands and the shovel hat is a man like any other. Dr. Ross has asked me to give the homily one Sunday before I go up to York. I promise that it will not be boring, if I can contrive it.”
“I’m sure it won’t be,” Amelia said, thinking, How can a man have eyelashes that long?
A tinkle of a silver bell, and Melissa Atherton stood up. “I believe everyone is here? Shall we proceed in a circle, then?”
o0o
In Mount Street the next morning, the Bouldeston ladies met alone at breakfast. This was too regular an occurrence to cause remark. The indolent Sir Henry was rarely seen at this hour, as he often had just returned from Watier’s not long before his wife and daughters rose. But even when he had not gone to his clubs, he had definite opinions about peace and quiet.
Consequently the ladies felt his presence as a constraint, and in his absence, enjoyed the freedom to give vent to their thoughts.
Lady Bouldeston’s entire business was not only to get her daughters wed, but to make certain that the marriages were better than those her sister might arrange for her girls. All this on an extremely stingy budget. She had definite ideas about how Lucretia and Lucasta ought to attain this laudable goal, but as her elder daughter in particular had inherited her combative nature, the instructive discourses she lay awake planning at night were too frequently met with argument and complaint.
An unlooked-for gain had occurred with Lucasta’s having apparently attracted an eligible suitor, Mr. Bartholomew Aston, the second son of a wealthy baron. Mr. Aston regarded himself as a poet and a patron of the arts, in particular music. Introduced at Almack’s, Lucasta and Mr. Aston had formed an interest in discussing German airs.
Mr. Aston was distantly related to Lady Badgerwood. Subsequently it was through his offices that Lucasta (and her mother) had been invited to the soiree the previous evening, an event that Lucretia had regarded herself well out of.
It being the first time Lucasta had ever been invited without her sister, she relished furnishing a detailed description as she buttered her third muffin.
Lucretia tolerated this for exactly as long as it took to finish her own muffin, then said, “Must you bore on forever, Lucasta? I can scarcely conceive anything duller than a soiree, unless it is hearing about one.”
Lucasta eyed her sister, then shrugged. “Well, I had hoped there would be music, for Mr. Aston thought there might. But Lady Badgerwood got them onto poems, and required everyone to recite some lines. Mama did quite well. I did not know you had any such things by heart, Mama.”
Lady Bouldeston’s thin brows lifted ironically. “I do not,” she drawled. “As girls, my sister and I were required to know one piece, precisely against these occasions, and our hands were slapped with a ruler if we faltered. I have never forgotten those wretched lines from Milton.”
“You never did that to us,” Lucretia was surprised into observing, for she’d meant to pretend her sister was not speaking. She frequently felt her sister was getting above herself, and consequently administered well-deserved snubs.
“Because I believe my daughters can get husbands just as well without muddling their heads with a lot of dull poetry.”
“Of course you had to excuse yourself,” Lucretia declared, eyeing her sister.
Lucasta shrugged. “I did, but I was not the only one. Amelia Harlowe mumbled a line or two out of Cowper, helped along by Miss Harlowe, and she sounded stupider than a block. Even Lady Chadwick knew a few lines of Pope, I believe she said it was.”
Lucretia glanced sharply up. “Amelia Harlowe? I suppose of course Catherine Decourcey was there?”
Lucasta spread jam over her muffin. “Of course. And Miss Harlowe, and coming late was that horrid prose-wind she’s betrothed to. He bored on forever with something or other—”
“Milton,” her mother interpolated, sipping chocolate.
Lucretia had no interest in either Milton or Lord Wilburfolde. “Catherine certainly is shooting up in the world on the Harlowes’ coattails.”
“Yes,” Lucasta said, knowing how much her sister would hate hearing it. “I understand she is invited everywhere.”
“I suppose she fascinated them all with something too marvelous?”
Lady Bouldeston regarded her daughter, and chose to administer her own snub. “She delivered Jonathan Swift’s ‘An Echo’ to general approbation.” And she turned languidly to the correspondence on the silver salver at her plate.
The conversation faltered there, each busy with her own thoughts. Lady Bouldeston frowned suddenly over a piece of mail, and without a word to her daughters rose and left the room.
Lucretia eyed her sister, who was pushing a muffin around on her plate, smiling dreamily, and said, “You look like a sapskull, mooning like that. After all you’ve prosed and prated you will look all no-how if your Mister Aston takes up spouting bad poetry to some other miss.”
Lucasta’s unheated “You don’t know anything about him” was so unlike her usual tearful or shrill self that Lucretia wondered if there was some danger that her younger sister—just turned eighteen—would marry before she did. Even if to a silly fellow like Aston.
“Who else was there?” Lucretia went on.
“All people of the first rank, for you know that Lord Badgerwood is related to one earl, and distantly to two dukes—”
Lucretia stirred milk into her teacup. “Was Mr. Devereaux there?” On her sister’s nod, “Did he show any interest in the Harlowe party? Miss Fordham tells me that it is whispered all over town that he has a weakness for Amelia Harlowe.”
Lucasta snorted. “If he does, he has an odd way of showing it. He did not sit near them, and scarcely exchanged two words with any of them outside of Miss Harlowe and the prose-wind.”
“He did not speak to... anyone else of the party?”
“Just good-evening to the others, and he only spoke to Catherine the once, after his turn, when he faltered on the last line of his poem, and she finished it for him.”
“I trust he gave her a set-down for thrusting herself forward.”
“Not at all. She whispered it, meaning to jog his memory, I think. He only looked surprised, then leaned forward, and uttered the first line of another poem in this toplofty voice, by some fellow Mama said was quite horrid in his day. Rochester? Anyway, she capped his line, and they traded off, these old-fashioned words in this odiously polite tone, which set everyone to laughing. That ended the poetry, as it happens.”
“I suppose it was to be expected that she would throw herself in his way. I wonder if he knows she hasn’t two pennies to bless herself with.”
Lucasta said with evident enjoyment, “He sought her out, when the tea came, but only to thank her for the line, whereupon he sat down next to Miss Atherton with his tea. And when Lord Wilburfolde insisted that Miss Harlowe ought to leave, as it was past midnight, and not healthy for anybody, Mr. Devereaux asked Lady Chadwick if he could call today, for he had a piece of business to execute, and what time might be convenient, well, Catherine was not even listening.”
“Oh,” Lucretia affected carelessness. “What time does Lady Chadwick consider convenient? I confess myself interested in what great ladies consider fashionable times for calls.”
Lucasta grinned knowingly. “Not before noon.”
Their mother returned, and Lucasta said quickly, “Mama, may I go out walking with Mr. Aston this morning? Without
Poggon?”
“No,” Lady Bouldeston said. “You must take Poggon, but I will drop a hint in her ear that she may lag behind. I would like it better if there were no older brother, but the family is respectable. See that you do nothing to drive him away.”
“Then I may go?”
“Lucasta, do not bounce so. You know my nerves are unequal to it in the morning.”
“Yes, Lucasta, pray try for a little self-control,” Lucretia added.
Lucasta rounded on her, ready with a retort, but then she shrugged, and walked out.
“At least she won’t be listening at doors if she’s out walking with that fop,” Lucretia stated.
Lady Bouldeston said, “I really did not think to see your sister married before you, Lucretia.”
Lucretia tossed her curls. “If I were to settle for the likes of a Mister Aston, I could have been married these four years. I am going out to make some necessary purchases. I will have to put new trim to my second-best bonnet, as Papa keeps us on such a horrid budget. I will be laughed at everywhere, wearing the same two bonnets. But I will need something to buy trim with.”
“Do you not have trim upstairs? I know you do. I laid out far too much when you were at the Pantheon Bazaar last Wednesday week. Lucretia, you had better understand that we are not made of money. Yes, St. Tarval did make another trifling payment, which will hold us for a time—if your father does not gamble it all away—but I discovered only last night that he and St. Tarval are agreed to sink the remainder of the debt. Something or other about canals, and borders, and other disagreeable articles too fatiguing to enumerate. My point is, we are going to be more straitened than usual as a result.”
“How selfish men are,” Lucretia declared with feeling.
Lady Bouldeston did not disagree. “You will find a few coins in my reticule. You may take half only, mind. I will count it when I come upstairs.”
Lucretia ran upstairs and put on her walking dress, spencer, and bonnet. She fetched the money, walked outside and down the street, but instead of turning toward the stores, she hailed a hackney, feeling greatly daring. “Brook Street,” she said.